


Observation

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-29
Updated: 2007-06-17
Packaged: 2019-01-19 22:54:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12419970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: A series of vignettes in which outsiders observe Lily and James' relationship. Not in chronological order.





	1. mrs. potter

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

**disclaimer:** not mine, nope, never will be, blah blah.

**a/n:** review, review, review!

 

\---

**Observation**

Laura Potter insists on picking up her son at Platform 9 3/4, even though he is quite able to Apparate home by himself. She waits and waits for him to step off the train—there are endless children, or so it seems, as she stands and watches, waiting for her son. She worries, berates herself for it, and then worries some more. Nothing bad could have possibly happened between graduation two days ago and now, but she worries anyway, because in a time like this she never stops. She sees his friends. Peter steps out first and waddles over to a person Laura recognizes as his father. Remus is next; he looks so much older than his years and there is more pain in his features than Laura ever hopes her own son will see. Third, Sirius—he is her son as well. Charming and handsome and always ready with an inappropriate joke in hand.  

By now, Laura is tapping her foot and sighing loudly. Finally, she sees her son. Her little boy, who is now taller than his father. His hair is everywhere, his walk is graceful, and his smile is shining.

He steps off and is immediately followed by a red-haired witch whom Laura recognizes as the Head Girl. She’s speaking; he’s laughing. He says something in turn and she smiles. Laura watches as he kisses the girl, over and over and over in a chain of short kisses. She’s laughing, he keeps kissing her in that broken fashion, and a loaded wind flies over Laura’s heart.

_How can they be laughing?_

And, Laura knows immediately, that this is the person that will make her son smile in troubled moments; this is the person for whom her son will give everything; this is the person her son will die with, be it tomorrow or in fifty years. She remembers when he was younger, before Hogwarts, before war. She knows that her son will fight—he hasn’t said a word about it, but she knows. She knows and for once she worries not for her little boy, but for the red-haired witch whose hand is enclosed in his. 

He spots her, finally, and waves. Laura waves back and swallows her dusty memories. He parts with the girl, who walks away to another couple on the platform.

“Mum!” he exclaims as he approaches.

He hugs her and with his arms around her, she suddenly feels like crying. 

 

 

 

 


	2. peter pettigrew

**disclaimer:**  not mine, never mine.

**a/n:** review, review, review!

 

\---

**Observation**

Peter has always been an observer, never a doer. He doesn’t enjoy being the center of attention—it makes him nervous, and he supposes if the alternative is being ignored, he’ll accept that.

_I’m not completely ignored. James and Sirius and Remus pay attention to me. And Lily._

Peter figures everyone has a bit of a crush on Lily Evans.

Lily is the type of person who ignores nobody and goes out of her way to say hello to the most unlikely people. Peter thinks she must be the embodiment of perfection, if it ever existed. Perfect face and perfect personality and perfect husband and perfect baby.

Peter babysat Harry once. The baby cried the whole fucking time.

James is Peter’s best friend, but Peter hates him sometimes. He hates how James is so lucky, so rich, so strong, so handsome, so brave, so smart, so damn _heroic_. He hates how James was the only to ever treat Lily with disrespect and yet he was still able to win her over. He hates how James is so protective over the two people that don’t deserve to be his.

Peter finds it funny, so bloody hilarious, how the perfect girl married the perfect boy and together they produced a perfect baby and they are all the world’s perfect family. The Perfect Potters. Peter laughs about it sometimes, out loud in his tiny, dust-covered, dark and damp apartment. His laughter is hollow. 

_What, do you think you deserve their life?_

His laughter is hollow. 

There is a chorus of _No no no no no_ with each footstep to the door.

He exits, closes the door behind him, and pulls on his black hood. There is a _pop!_ as he Disapparates, gripping the stinging pain in his left forearm with his wand hand as he disappears into nothingness. 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. emmeline vance

**disclaimer:** Belongs to JKR.

**a/n:** Sorry for the wait. I've been busy with finals, but now school's out. Yay. Review! 

 

\---

**Observation**

“You like blondes, right?”

“I like—what?”

Emmeline Vance leans a bit further back in her chair and tucks her skinny legs underneath her. Her thick hair sticks to the cushion with static and her elbow is propped up on the chair’s arm. Her fingers lethargically dangle the quill that should be writing an essay, but hasn’t touched the parchment since “The primary function of scurvy-grass is…”

She thinks it would be too obvious (and, she gathers, a bit creepy) if she were to turn around and watch them. She is content with listening instead. She deems that she might fail sixth year because she spends Sunday nights living vicariously through the Head Girl rather than writing many a procrastinated paper. Nevertheless, the ink stays far from the paper and her ear is eager.

“I mean—you did, right? I never pegged you as a lover of redheads.”

“Well, I’m not. Nor am I a lover of blondes. I don’t discriminate against hair colors.”

“Yeah, but you were always with blondes.”

Emmeline twirls her own overlong, dirty-blonde hair in her free hand and remembers the time James Potter smiled at her in a prefects’ meeting.

“I’m not with one now, am I?”

“You don’t— don’t _discriminate_ much at all, do you?”

There is silence for a moment, and Emmeline is so curious that she almost turns around to see if they’ve left with a quietness so silent even her keen, hyper-observant ear wouldn’t catch. Then—she hears a muffled “ _God_ ” and she imagines Lily’s face is pressed into James’ chest.

“Hold it. Just hold it. Hold it.”

Oh. She’s crying, then.

The common room is somewhat crowded for a Sunday night, and Emmeline supposes James is trying to save Lily any embarrassment, any suggestion of discomposure, save her any indiscretion that she’d have to deal with had anyone seen. She gathers why Lily is crying. A closet Romantic, perhaps, but Emmeline is nowhere near naïve of the world and its slow, painful demolition. She is fascinated (and faintly dismayed) that a boy so young has learned to cope so well.  

There is quiet still, but Emmeline can hear murmurs and whispering. If she blocks out all the background noise—a difficult feat, for Gryffindors love to talk—she can hear broken up words in the soft breaths between the two. 

“Can’t — fair — ridiculous — sometimes it’s — sometimes I can’t — understand — ”

“Difficult — we — choices — in the end — save us.”

It’s when Emmeline leans back another inch that her parchment and textbook fall off her lap and to the floor. With an inward groan she realizes she should probably get to bed so she can wake up early and write the essay. She rises and begins putting things back into her bag, absentmindedly glancing around the room.

Her eyes pause as she passes the vision of two seventeen-year-olds wrapped in each other, sinking deeply into the scarlet and gold of the sofa and sinking deeply into each other. She watches the boy kiss the girl’s temple lightly, and whisper something in her ear.

The redhead smiles, and Emmeline imagines it must’ve been a sort of profession of love, or something equally reassuring. 

 

 

 


	4. remus j. lupin

**disclaimer:** Never mine.

**a/n:** Your reviews are blessings. Thank you. :) Anywho, if you hadn't noticed, I'm really slow. Turns out summer doesn't always mean free time. I'm trying, though--I can tell you that much. This one's a bit longer than the others, not by much, but I'm still calling it a vignette. Probably because I love Remus. So, reviews=love, and all that. =)

 

\---

**Observation**

Remus was there when James first noticed Lily Evans.

It wasn’t the first time he laid eyes on her; _that_ was on September 1st of their very first year, though neither moment was quite of the explosive fireworks, sold-out Broadway show variety. When James first essentially _noticed_ her, they were fourteen.

“Lily Evans grew her hair out,” James had said.

“I know,” replied Remus.

“She looks rather… nice,” James said.

“Nice?” echoed Remus.

“Really nice.” James exhaled a single breath that seemed to go on for hours. “I think… I think I might…”

“Ask her out?” suggested Remus.

He sighed again. “Moony, I have a _feeling_.”

And Remus, a good friend and a supporter (though admittedly a bit of a skeptic) of James when he got _one of those feelings_ , pressed on. “And what is this _feeling_?”

When he spoke, he stared at Lily Evans purposefully, with a sort of determination. Remus was quite sure that James was more or less speaking to her when he said, “I’m going to marry that girl.”

Remus only looked at him as if he were a lunatic, and wondered why he encouraged James during his lapses of ominous, self-proclaimed prophetic _feelings_.

\---

Remus was there when James first announced his decision to propose to Lily Evans. It was a blatantly disgusting day in the first week of April. The thunder shattered eardrums, the lightning was blinding, and the rain pounded down outside in thick, never-ending bullets.

It was the four of them, altogether, for the first time in weeks. They were in a old-fashioned little Muggle restaurant in downtown London, sitting at a wooden table with one wobbly leg and engraved with the markings of those who had sat there before them. They were nineteen.

“I’m going to ask Lily to marry me,” said James, and Remus watched him trace his name on the table with his finger. Invisible and never to be seen.

Peter gaped, Sirius laughed, and Remus remained still. 

“You’re kidding,” said Peter.

“Mate, you two have been married since seventh year and you don’t even know it. Congratulations, I say,” said Sirius.

“I’m not kidding,” said James. “And thanks, Padfoot. Uh, Moony…?”

Remus looked at him, studied his nervous face, and was satisfied that his opinion seemed to matter, though he knew fundamentally, in this case, that it did not. 

“You’re sure about this?” he finally asked.

“What do you think, Remus?”

It was rhetorical, Remus knew, but he felt inclined to respond. 

“I think you know,” he began. “You know that you love her enough to know that you wouldn’t give a damn if we all objected to your decision. You would go on and ask her anyway.” He paused. “’Screw them,’ you know? ‘I fucking love this girl.’ And you know this. I think you know this.”

James stared at him, first indignant and then concerned. “Translation…?”

After a moment, Remus smiled. “It’s a very good thing.”

James sighed, shook his head, and grinned. 

“Go on then,” prompted Remus. “Show us the ring; we all know it’s in your pocket.”

With another sigh, another shake and another grin—sometimes Prongs was too predictable—he reached into his pocket.

If James were to have another one of those _feelings_ , Remus distinctly decided that he would trust it completely. 

 

 

 


	5. petunia evans dursley

**disclaimer:** Belongs to Ms. JKR. 

**a/n:** Dude, fast update, I _know_. I realized the last chapter wasn't very angst-y and that kind of pissed me off, because, you know, I'm 16 and chock-full of angst. I like this chapter much more than Remus' (and thanks for the reviews on that one). So eat, drink, be merry, read and review. =)

 

\---

**Observation**

I never resented you for being different.

It was a sudden comprehension. And when the realization hit me, its impact was that of a thundering crash. The walls of the house stumbled and shook, the roof collapsed, Nana’s china shattered into a thousand little pieces. The house of our beloved family was a cluttered mess of wood and drywall on the green grass of our perfectly trimmed front lawn. This was the after picture.

The before picture is a real photograph on the bottom of some dusty shoebox in my attic. I’ve lost it, but I don’t need it because I’ve got it memorized. We’re in the midst of laughter. Hugging. It’s less than a moment, this picture. We’re not moving, like you might be in one of your pictures.

We are frozen. I don’t need to remember the moment before, where we were probably wrestling or tickling each other. I don’t need the moment after, where we were probably bickering or throwing things. In this one infinitesimal period of time, we are happy. Happy, and frozen.

I like it better this way.

The resentment went away after I realized I was _good_ at being normal.

I never resented you for being different.

One summer day, you brought him home, your slender hand enclosed in his masculine one, grinning like a little kid in a toy store. Your eyes trailed from Mum to Dad to Vernon to me, where they grew slightly concerned, maybe even sorrowful. By now, you were used to cold stares and repulsed sneers.

Of course, James Potter squeezed your hand anyway.

Then— _then_ , I resented you.

I love my husband. We’re similar people; he’s good to me. But he has _never_ looked at me the way James Potter looks at you. He has never looked at me as if he feels so lucky that it’s surreal. I love my husband; we’re similar; he is good to me, and I’m sure he never thinks about the fragility of our life together.

Normal people fall in love, but I expected to fall into a love so deep that it left me bruised but still dancing. I expected for myself a love all-consuming, undeniable, inconvenient, affectionate, painful and infallible. I expected this for myself. 

I never wanted the stuff of _normal_ romance.

I love my husband. He is good to me. We’re married and he wouldn’t dare hold my hand in front of other people. I love him, he is good to me, and I’m certain he would run if it meant protecting himself.

“This is James.” Childlike, so-Goddamn-in-love grin gone, you spoke to Vernon with a forced smile.

“A pleasure.” James Potter said it, but everyone knew he didn’t mean it. He stepped forward with one foot slightly in front of yours, locked eyes with Vernon, and shook his hand firmly.

I’ve studied body language. This is a clear-cut sign of protection.

I stood directly next to Vernon. When it was time to proceed into the living room, Vernon and I walked together, behind you and James. He walked the slightest bit behind you, his hand lightly touching your side.

And you’d never believe it of your pristine, traditional, so very average, normal big sister, but from then on—it was never about being _different_. 

 

 

 

 


	6. minerva mcgonagall

 disclaimer: Far from mine.

**a/n:**   A little... comic relief? Or something. R&R! :)

 

\---

**Observation**

Most years, choosing the head boy and head girl is a relatively simple task. Most years, compatibility is not an issue and the qualifications of either are no debate. Most years, however, James Potter is not a rising senior.

“Honestly, Albus! The boy was never even a prefect, he has a _record-breaking_ detention tally, he is most unfocused, and I am _quite_ sure that he and the decidedly determined head girl will never deign to cooperate.”

Albus Dumbledore smiled softly, knowingly, and ever omnisciently at the professor. The smile was truly a constant for her – she could rely on it to appear most days of the week. It never failed to appear in situations of distress, and it never failed to both reassure and slightly exasperate the woman simultaneously.

“Mr. Potter, though never a prefect and often detained, has a most incandescently willful, spirited nature. He has a glowing talent beyond the aptitude of much of his peers; a born leader, I daresay—and the focus will come to him when summoned.”

The man could always be relied on to speak in such eloquent tones, with articulated words and phrases that would indefinitely seem pretentious if spoken by any other.

“But the responsibility of being head boy!” she persisted. “ And consider the animosity between Potter and Evans, who is possibly the most qualified candidate for head girl in years.”

“I am quite sure,” said he, “the two are destined for causes more inconceivably imperative than they shall ever comprehend, several of which one cannot fulfill without the assistance of the other.”

Minerva’s eyes begged to roll back into their lids, but she resisted. “What is the meaning of this? The two clearly hate each other, Albus.”

The headmaster’s tender hands grazed over the transcript of both James Potter and Lily Evans. 

“Hate is not the opposite of love, dear Professor,” said the old wizard, peering at her over his spectacles.

She sighed, at a loss of argument for the insightful old man. “I do suppose that the two are at the top of their class…”

“I presume you believe there is little potential in their relationship.”

“And you, sir?”

“I believe that a dash of encouragement can go a long way.”

_Encouragement_ , she repeated inwardly. _Encouragement, brutally aggressive force, one and the same._

“Then I suppose I do as well,” said the woman with a raised eyebrow.

“You have little faith, Minerva,” said the headmaster. “An Evans-Potter union could very well result in overflowing prosperity.”

_Overflowing prosperity, violent explosion, one and the same._

Minerva forced a smile towards her superior, her eyes still begging to roll backwards. 


	7. harry james potter

a/n: So here's my latest thought on Deathly Hallows. Alright, so the series finale for The Sopranos? WTF? Cutting it off in the midst of a Journey chorus and fading to black? No, not even fading.  Just... black. No death, no closure. Seriously, I don't even watch this show and I was annoyed. But I was thinking, how _pissed_ would you be if that happened in HP book 7? Ahahah. _So_ pissed.

 But I digress. R&R.

disclaimer: Not mine.

 

\---

**Observation**

I looked up at you, and you looked down at me, and your lips curled and you looked like you were about to cry. 

There is little to be said about the mindset of an infant. We are nearly aphasic. We screech. Whimper. Coo. That’s it, actually, but I wish I had the ability to just let you _know_.

Really, I don’t know who you are, but I know who you’ve become to me. You’re that familiar person who fills me when I’m too empty and empties me when I’m too full. You hold me when I screech, through the whimpers, until I coo. I don’t know life without you.

You looked down at me, and noises came from your mouth. Then you held me close to your chest and breathed into my ear, inhaling despair and exhaling hope.

There are no words for me. There are feelings that trigger something in my body, cause my nerves to stand on end, and somehow I know that my blood and my heart and my soul are ultimately and utterly connected to you and him. You and he were two. Now, you and he and I are one.

He appeared next to you, and gently you placed me in his arms and you watched us adoringly. Without knowing why, or what, or how, without a reason, I simply reached up and tugged on his hair. He tugged on mine.

“Dada.” The noise came from his mouth.

“Daaaadaaaaa.” From mine.

His lips curled, his teeth revealed. He looked at you. You looked at me. And you smiled. And you cried.

And I cried.

Without knowing why, or what, or how, I wish I could tell you, it’s all right. I wish I could say, I’ll make it better for you like you make it better for me. I wish I could make promises to you and fix it, whatever it is, because I don’t know but I want to, and I want to make it disappear. 

He kissed you on the forehead and swayed back and forth with me in his arms. You kissed him on the mouth and three syllables escaped your lips in a breath. I wish I could comprehend them. I wish the only thing I know is more than that he is Dada and you are the familiar woman I can’t live without.

I screech. You take me. I whimper. You kiss me. I coo.

Somehow, you are always there to make it stop, whatever it is. I wish I could do the same for you. 

 

 

 


End file.
